329: Sanctuary — Moving the Mishkan

BEMA Episode Link: 329: Sanctuary — Moving the Mishkan
Episode Length: 1:40:41
Published Date: Thu, 04 May 2023 01:00:00 -0700
Session 6
About this episode:

Brent Billings is with Josh Bossé and Reed Dent to see how God’s presence shows up in surprising ways throughout the tabernacle.

Presentation for Sanctuary — Moving the Mishkan (PDF)

BEMA 294: John — Sacrifice, Suffering, and Joy

Notes

*Note: The following notes are handwritten by me, Adam, and I reserve the right to be wrong.

Title & Source Summary

Episode: BEMA 329: Mishkan, Day Five: Flyers, Priests, and the God Who Dwells Among Us
Hosts: Brent Billings, with Josh Bossé and Reed Dent
Focus: Genesis 1:20–23 (the fifth day of creation) and Exodus 29 (the consecration of Aaron and his sons, and the daily offering)

This episode continues the Mishkan (tabernacle) series by reading the tabernacle instructions alongside the seven days of creation. Josh starts with Day Five, when God fills the waters with living creatures and birds rise out of the water. It is the first day with a blessing and the first mention of nefesh chayah (“living being”). The birds cross between sea, sky, and land, but God blesses them to multiply on the earth, and the hosts treat them as an image of the priests. The conversation then moves through Exodus 29: the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the ordination (peace) offering; blood placed on the priests’ right ear, thumb, and big toe; atonement made for the altar itself; and the tamid, the burnt offering brought every morning and evening. The chapter ends with God’s thesis for the whole Exodus: “I brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them.” The hosts argue that sacrifice, atonement, and the priesthood all point toward shared presence, celebration, and shalom.

Key Takeaways

Day Five brings three firsts. It has the first blessing in creation, the first mention of life (nefesh chayah), and the second use of bara (“create”), which marks a new dimension of creation (here, the great sea creatures).
The birds’ blessing is on the earth, not in the sky. Birds are “flyers,” but their nests and their fruitfulness are on the ground. People with elevated callings are only blessed when they come back down and stay near the people they serve.
The priests are like the birds. They can move into holy spaces no one else can enter, but they can’t stay there. Their work is moving back and forth between God’s presence and the people.
Each offering in the ordination has its own purpose:
1. The sin offering (the bull) covers unintentional sins and admits from the start that leaders will make mistakes.
2. The burnt offering (the first ram) is burned completely and mentions no atonement. It is an offering of repentance and transformation.
3. The ordination/peace offering (the second ram) is celebratory and communal, and it marks the priests’ bodies and garments.
Atonement (kippur) means covering as protection. It is not hiding a permanent stain. It separates a person from their sin, the way a coat protects you from the cold.
Sacrifice is mainly for the people, not for God. Unlike ancient deities whose sacrifices fed them, Israel’s God does not eat. The offering is an invitation to a meal at God’s house, where relationships are restored in community.
Ear, thumb, big toe. The blood marks what the priests hear, what they do, and where they go. The order suggests hearing comes before doing, and doing comes before arriving in the “right place.”
The priest is a servant. Blood on the ear recalls the servant in Exodus 21 whose ear was pierced at the doorpost. The priesthood is not for the priest’s own advancement, spiritual or otherwise.
The altar becomes “holy of holies.” After seven days of atonement it is called kodesh kodashim, the same phrase used for the inner sanctum, and whatever touches it becomes holy.
The tamid is always ready. A burnt offering is always on the altar, morning and evening, for every generation, as a standing invitation to repent and be transformed.
God meets people at the doorway. God speaks at the entrance to the tent of meeting, where priests and people meet, not only in the Holy of Holies.
The point of it all is presence. “I brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell (shakan) among them.” The whole Mishkan exists so that God can be with the people.

Main Concepts & Theories

1. Day Five: Filling the Waters

Creation moves in two parallel sets of days:

Days 1–3 separate: light, then water, then land.
Days 4–6 fill: lights, then water creatures and birds, then land creatures.

Day Five fills the waters from Day Two. Josh points out several details:

Blessing appears for the first time. God blesses the creatures to be fruitful and multiply.
Life appears for the first time. Plants reproduce, but the text sets apart creatures that move (“movers,” often translated “creeping things”). They are nefesh chayah, living beings.
Bara is used again. This verb for creating something new appears in Genesis 1:1, here for the great sea creatures, and next for humans. Each use signals a new dimension of creation.
Birds come from the water. Following rabbinic readings and the Hebrew, both fish and birds are called forth from the waters. The birds then cross the divisions: they rise into the heavens that separate the waters (Day Two), but they must return to the land.

The birds’ blessing. God blesses the fish to fill the seas and the birds to multiply on the earth. Birds are known as sky creatures (in Hebrew they are literally “flyers”), but they can’t live in the sky. Their nests, their young, and their fruitfulness are on the ground.

Application in the episode:

The “fish” are ordinary people living faithful lives in the middle of the chaos. They are blessed right where they are and don’t need to become prophets or famous leaders.
The “birds” are people with elevated callings: priests, leaders, anyone with extra insight or resources. Their blessing depends on landing near the “shoreline,” close to people who are not like them. Elevated space is not a place to show off. Fruitfulness comes from being grounded.

2. The Ordination Rite (Exodus 29:1–9)

Aaron and his sons are washed at the entrance to the tent of meeting and dressed in the garments described in Exodus 28. Last episode focused on presence (what the garments communicate). This chapter puts that presence in context: how the priests will move through the space, interact with the people, and “bring the tabernacle to life,” which parallels Day Five filling creation with life.

3. Three Types of Offering

Offering	Animal	What happens	Purpose (as discussed)
Sin offering (chatat)	Bull	Blood on the altar’s horns, the rest poured at its base; the fat burned; the flesh and hide burned outside the camp	Covers unintentional sin. A bull is required for leaders whose errors mislead the nation.
Burnt offering (olah)	First ram	Blood splashed on the altar; the whole animal burned	An offering of repentance and transformation, even after intentional sin. It mentions no atonement and nobody eats it.
Ordination/peace offering (shelamim)	Second ram	Blood on the ear, thumb, and toe; blood and oil sprinkled on the garments; parts waved and eaten	Celebration and fellowship. The priest who offers it shares in the meal.

Sin offering: humility at the start. Aaron and his sons haven’t failed yet in office, so why offer a sin offering? Josh gives two readings:

Humility. The priests accept ahead of time that they will make mistakes, and they “take the hit” for it before anything has gone wrong.
A fresh start. Aaron was already a prominent figure during the Exodus. Atonement lets the community see him in a new way, apart from any earlier history.

Burnt offering: the “loophole” offering. No sacrifice by itself atones for an intentional sin. That requires repentance. The burnt offering gave people a way to express repentance within the community’s sacrificial system instead of alone. It could also mark any major life change or commitment to grow. Even though it is completely charred, the text calls it a “pleasing aroma.” God receives transformation as worship.

Peace offering: keep your eyes on the feast. In Leviticus, the priest who offers the peace offering eats from it, which pulls the priest into the celebration. God assigns the waved breast and the thigh from fellowship offerings as the priests’ perpetual share (Exod 29:26–28). God is directing the priests toward the goal: getting people to the feast, not only helping them through the mess.

Justice and transformation. The peace offering ends the same way the burnt offering does, “a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” Josh distinguishes two things:

Justice is transactional: you pay for the car you crashed.
Repentance and transformation look like worship: you let God remake you.

God treats both the celebratory meal and the fully burned offering as equally pleasing.

4. What Atonement Is (and Isn’t)

Reed asks whether sacrifice is for God’s sake or for the worshipper’s. Josh answers:

Kippur means “to cover,” but in Leviticus the covering protects and separates you from your sin. It is not a cover-up of a stain God can’t stand to look at.
God does not eat the sacrifices, unlike the deities of surrounding cultures. The sacrifice is an invitation to God’s table.
Relational analogy: after you hurt a friend, you don’t feel reconciled until you’re back in your normal rhythm, laughing together or watching a movie. The shared meal makes forgiveness something you can feel.
The process has stages:
1. Laying hands on the animal and confessing publicly while it is slaughtered. This is a raw moment of facing the harm you’ve done.
2. The atonement itself, which happens when the offering is on the altar and the smoke rises, and you smell what God calls “pleasing.”
3. Priests who guide people through repentance, because it is more complicated than saying “I won’t do it again.”
It builds community. People bringing sin offerings, people bringing burnt offerings, and people celebrating with peace offerings (who must share their surplus food within a set time) are all together in the same courtyard. People who are hurting are held by people in healthier seasons.

5. Blood

Josh openly admits he hasn’t worked out the exact meaning of the different blood rites (horns, sides, base, sprinkling). He offers this background:

Blood carries the nefesh, the life force. Nefesh is the word used for the first time on Day Five (“living creatures”).
Horns generally symbolize power or strength.

6. Ear, Thumb, and Big Toe

Blood is placed on the right earlobe, right thumb, and right big toe of each priest.

The order matters. First hearing (what you listen to), then doing (what you do with your hands), then going (where you are). Western logic would put “go to the right place” first, but the text suggests you learn by getting your hands dirty before you arrive at the right place.
The doorway and the pierced ear. In Exodus 21, a servant who chose permanent service had their ear pierced against the doorpost. That law is among the first given after leaving Egypt, and it echoes the doorway where the Passover blood was placed. The echo suggests that the priest is a servant.
An “ultra-servant.” An ordinary servant receives instructions but decides how to carry them out. The priest’s service reaches down to how and where each task is done, because they represent God.
No personal gain. Like a hired worker who doesn’t keep the harvest, the priest doesn’t serve for personal spiritual growth, status, or wealth. The Levites could not own land outside their cities.
Keep it in proportion. Much of this applies directly to spiritual leadership. A high priest over a nation and someone leading a junior-high small group carry different weights.

7. Seven Days and an Atoned Altar (Exodus 29:35–37)

A full creation cycle. The ordination repeats for seven days.
Atonement for an object. Atonement is made for the altar itself. This shows that atonement is not only about personal guilt. People tend to associate the altar only with sin, the same way Christians often reduce the cross to a story about sin alone. Seven days of offerings that move from sin, to repentance, to celebration reframe the altar as a place that ends in feasting.
Kodesh kodashim. The altar becomes “most holy,” the same phrase used for the Holy of Holies where the Ark rests. God’s presence is as strong at the communal altar as over the Ark.
Contagious holiness. “Whatever touches it will be holy.” Normally contact spreads impurity. Here holiness spreads. In practice, an animal with a blemish that slipped through was treated as acceptable once it touched the altar. Symbolically, coming into this shared, priestly, divine space draws you toward God. Josh connects this to Jesus: grace is stronger than sin, and it reverses the vicious cycle rather than only stopping it.

8. The Tamid: The Constant Offering (Exodus 29:38–42)

Twice daily. Two lambs are offered every day, one in the morning and one at twilight, echoing the evening-and-morning rhythm of creation.
It is a burnt offering, the offering of repentance and transformation.
It is always there. It is offered “for the generations to come,” so a sacrifice is already on the altar. You don’t even have to bring your own. Repentance is a constant invitation, and that is grace. Josh stresses that neither Jesus nor Paul invented this idea. It was present from the beginning.
Why the sin offering comes first. A Western reader might expect the burnt offering to come first as the most serious. But the burnt offering is the bridge between stumbling (the sin offering) and simply gathering to celebrate (the peace offering).

9. God Meets at the Doorway and Dwells Among the People (Exodus 29:42–46)

The meeting place is the doorway. God meets and speaks with the priests and the people at the entrance to the tent of meeting. That is the in-between space where everyone can see: the shoreline, the bird’s dry land, the “door of heaven” from Day Two.
Grace is messy. The priests and the altar are consecrated by sacrifice, but God also says, “the place will be consecrated by my glory.” God doesn’t fit into neat zones (Zone A for God, Zone B for staff, Zone C for visitors). God is at the door, at the altar, and doing the sanctifying, and God still asks for the ritual steps.
Repentance is not a gatekeeper. Reed ties this to the Parables series: repentance is not a gate you pass before God accepts you. It is how you come into contact with grace that is already there.
The thesis statement: “I will dwell among the Israelites… I brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them.” God dwells in the middle of the people, not only in the tabernacle. The words Mishkan and shakan (“to dwell”) share a root. Josh summarizes the whole Exodus this way: “Here are the steps of the dance, but the dance is there so I can be with you.”
It mirrors creation. Genesis 1 ends in Sabbath rest, with God simply being with creation. Dig “eight stories down” into the tabernacle details and you find the same core message. Josh’s analogy: God invents a complicated language just to say “I love you.”

Examples & Applications

The bird and the nest. A pastor, professor, or executive may feel at home “in the sky” of ideas, influence, or spiritual experience. Their fruitfulness comes from landing: living near, eating with, and listening to people in different circumstances.
Reconciling after hurting a friend. Someone says “we’re good,” but it doesn’t feel real until you’re sharing a meal or laughing together again. The peace offering turns that experience into a ritual.
A community of mixed seasons. Picture a church potluck where someone grieving sits next to someone celebrating a new job and someone trying to break an addiction. That is the courtyard of the tabernacle in miniature.
Justice and transformation. If you dent a neighbor’s car, justice means paying for the repair. Actually becoming a more careful, humble person is a different kind of act: worship and transformation.
Social workers and counselors. Josh notes that caregivers can burn out when their job feels like being “the ditch-digger through people’s mess.” Keeping the “feast” in view, meaning actual flourishing and celebration, restores purpose.
Ear, thumb, toe as a way to handle sin:
1. Ear: What story am I telling myself about this sin, mine or someone else’s?
2. Thumb: What am I doing with it? What habits am I changing, and what am I holding on to?
3. Toe: Where am I taking it? Whom am I talking to, and where am I spending my time?
Start where you are. Reed says you can “start doing” in ordinary, unglamorous places, like family routines and your own home, instead of waiting for grand callings.
Making the community holy vs. solving the problem. Instead of asking “Who is right, and how do we settle every bill?”, ask “How do we deal with this in a way that makes our shared space somewhere God’s presence can be seen?”
Culture war and ideology. Reed contrasts two kinds of separation. Ideology separates me from you. Atonement separates a person from their sin, which draws people together. Priests are supposed to cross boundaries, not settle permanently inside their own tribe’s comfortable space.
Earbuds and presence. Josh admits he wore earbuds constantly during his cancer treatment, which he doesn’t frame as a moral failure. Still, it’s worth noticing how much of our daily “dwelling” we pass through without really being present.
A daily tamid. What rhythm of repentance, change, and transformation could you practice every morning and evening?

Potential Areas for Further Exploration

The great sea creatures (taninim). Both Josh and Brent wanted to explore the meaning of the sea giants on Day Five and their link to ancient Near Eastern chaos imagery.
Blood rites in Leviticus. Why is blood placed on the horns in some offerings, splashed on the sides or base in others, and sprinkled in the sanctuary in still others?
The wave offering (tenufah). Josh admitted he isn’t sure what the waving means. Rabbinic and scholarly commentary could shed light on it.
“Food offering” vs. “offering by fire” (isheh). How the term is translated, and what that implies about God and sacrifice.
The sacrifice series from BEMA Session 6 (around Episode 294). Compare it with this episode’s account of the offering types.
Contagious holiness. Compare Exodus 29:37 with Haggai 2:11–13 and with the Gospel accounts of Jesus touching people who were unclean.
Exodus 21:1–6 and the servant’s pierced ear. Trace the doorway motif from Passover, through the servant law, to the entrance of the tent of meeting.
The tamid in Second Temple Judaism. Look at its place in temple worship, its link to daily prayer times, and its connections to the New Testament (for example, Acts 3:1).
Atonement theology. Compare “covering as protection/separation” with the penal and cleansing models common in Christian theology.
Nation of priests (Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9). How much of the priestly calling applies to every believer, and how do you keep it “in proportion”?
The fractal structure of the Mishkan. Read the seven-day ordination and the three offerings as a mirror of the whole creation account.

Comprehension Questions

What three things happen for the first time, or with new significance, on Day Five of creation? Why is it significant that the birds are blessed to multiply “on the earth” and not in the sky?
Compare the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the ordination/peace offering in Exodus 29. What does each accomplish, and why does the burnt offering mention no atonement?
How does Josh define atonement (kippur)? How does his “covering as protection” differ from the idea of hiding a permanent stain, and who does he say the sacrifices are mainly for?
What might blood on the priests’ right ear, thumb, and big toe mean? How does the servant’s pierced ear in Exodus 21 shape the meaning of priesthood?
According to Exodus 29:42–46, where does God meet the priests and the people? What does God say was the purpose of bringing Israel out of Egypt, and how does that connect to the word Mishkan?

Personalized Summary

This episode shows that the tabernacle’s complex rituals all point to one simple thing: God wants to be with the people. Day Five sets up the image. Birds rise from the waters and can reach the sky, but their blessing, nests, and fruitfulness are on the ground. Priests are the same: they can enter holy places, but their calling is at the doorway, near the people. The three ordination offerings (sin, burnt, and peace) move from admitting mistakes, to real transformation, to a shared feast. Atonement protects and frees people from sin rather than satisfying a God who needs to be fed. The altar becomes “holy of holies,” and whatever touches it becomes holy. The tamid, a burnt offering always burning morning and evening, makes repentance a standing invitation. At the end of Exodus 29, God states the purpose plainly: “I brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them.” For your own life, the question is whether you treat sin, leadership, and community the way the priests did: listening carefully, acting faithfully, staying grounded among people, and aiming for shared presence and celebration.

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S6 329: Sanctuary — Moving the Mishkan

Meeting God in Surprising Ways [1:40:41]